Two games in a day for Magpie Tony Armstrong

Tony Armstrong (right) had a night he will remember. Photo: Getty Images

Tony Armstrong was around 13 when he last played two games of football in a day. When you are a teenager it’s what you do. When you are a senior AFL footballer it is far from what you do.

Armstrong began the day at 7.30am, driving to Geelong to play in the VFL game at 11am. An emergency for the seniors that night, he played all four quarters in the VFL game and ran 14 kilomeres during the match.

He drove home and stiffened up a bit on the drive. He was home long enough to eat a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise before driving to the MCG to be an emergency for the team.

The team ran out for the warm-up and fitness coach Bill Davoren told Armstrong he could get ready to go home and rest instead of hanging around to watch the match. MInutes later that all changed.

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"I was coming prepared to play but not expecting to, knowing the game plan and all that stuff that was running through my head but the last thing I expected was to play.

"I don't think you can expect the run of injuries we had. We had Clinton (Young) as the carry-over player and normally one is enough, but today we needed two."

Drafted into the team, Armstrong was made the substitute. But four minutes into the game Ben Reid tore a hamstrng and so, after just seven minutes, Armstrong found himself on the ground.To compound the problem further, injuries to Travis Cloke and Dayne Beams meant that tthe club had fewer rotations on the bench so Armstrong was given even less of a break.

"I was just trying to limber up as quickly as I could. I was a bit stiff in the first 20 minutes or so but as the game went on I loosened up a bit but I wasn't at full rat power – it was pretty frustrating," he said.

Armstrong ran about another 14 kilometres in the evening - he finished just shy of 30km for the day.

The smallest of the small mercies on the day was that the VFL game had started at 11am. Had it been a 2pm start he would have had to have driven straight from Geelong to the MCG.

"I would have been even stiffer, if that was possible," he said.

Buckley said it was difficult to balance game fitness in emergency players and having players ready to be available if needed.

"Philosophically we discuss what we do with the carry-over player every week. I think most teams will have a philosophy on that. We fee like we need to get games into our players when we can, so we didn't carry one over today," Buckley said.

"In the worst case scenario we manage the game time of a couple of our emergencies and they're there to come into a sub role if we have a situation like tonight. I don't know what has to happen or how often it happens where that player goes into a sub role and he's into the game five minutes in because someone else gets injured. It's not something we plan for."